Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Feast of William Tyndale, Translator of the Scriptures, Martyr, 1536

[William Tyndale] was a master of a simple and forceful literary style. This, combined with exactness and breadth of scholarship, led him so to translate the Greek New Testament into English as largely to determine the character, form, and style of the Authorized Version. There have been some painstaking calculations to determine just how large a part Tyndale may have had in the production of the version of 1611. A comparison of Tyndale’s version of I John and that of the Authorized Version shows that nine-tenths of the latter is retained from the martyred translator’s work. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians retains five-sixths of Tyndale’s translation. These proportions are maintained throughout the entire New Testament. Such an influence as that upon the English Bible cannot be attributed to any other man in all the past.

More than that, Tyndale set a standard for the English language that moulded in part the character and style of that tongue during the great Elizabethan era and all subsequent time. He gave the language fixity, volubleness, grace, beauty, simplicity, and directness. His influence as a man of letters was permanent on the style and literary taste of the English people, and of all who admire the superiority and epochal character of the literature of the sixteenth century.

... Ira Maurice Price (1856-1939), The Ancestry of Our English Bible, Philadelphia: The Sunday School Times Company, 1907, p. 245-246 (see the book; see also 2 Tim. 3:16-17; 2 Sam. 23:2; Matt. 5:18; 21:42; Mark 12:24; Luke 16:17; 24:44-46; John 5:39-40; 10:35; 19:36-37; Rom. 3:1-2; 15:4; Heb. 4:12; 2 Pet. 1:21; more at Beauty, Bible, Grace, Historical, Influence, Permanence, Simplicity)

 
Compilation Copyright, 1996-2024, by Robert McAnally Adams,
        Curator, Christian Quotation of the Day,
        with Robert Douglas, principal contributor
Logo image Copyright 1996 by Shay Barsabe, of “Simple GIFs”, by kind permission.
Send comments to curator@cqod.com.

Last updated: 10/02/19

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